This rough-copy poem-draft, composed in the 1870s (Smith and Hart), possibly
around 1877 (RWF), found its way into Susan Dickinson's papers at some point after
Dickinson's death. For different versions of the provenance of this manuscript,
see R. W. Franklin's introduction to The Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Variorum edition. 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap P of Harvard University
P, 1998) and Smith's and Hart's Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's
Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Ashfield, Mass.: Paris
Press, 1998). The haphazard disposition of this rough-copy poem-draft across the
paper makes the interpretation and representation of variant readings problematic;
viewers are urged to consult the facsimile and the diplomatic transcription of the
manuscript. For a related fragment, see A 509 /
510. In Poems (1998), R. W. Franklin indicates that the
fragment carrying the lines "Yearns no more | for that Peninsula" was composed
shortly before H 338, perhaps catalyzing the compositional process, but it may
been composed after the rough-copy draft. Dickinson inscribed the fragment on
quadrille stationery, and in a hand that exhibits at least some of the
characteristics of her fair-copy hand.

One heavily overwritten and illegible notation is penciled on H 338 (upper left);
the authorship and significance of the notation are not known.